The best of Cannes Day 4 & 5
Paul Yole continues to highlight his best experiences in Cannes.
DAY 4. It’s known as ‘Massive Wednesday’, mainly because Massive Music has a huge party but also because the social side of Cannes is at its peak.
I missed the Campaign Brief lunch at La Colombe D’Or so I could attend some seminars. Curious decision perhaps but I did manage a swift but lovely lunch at the Carlton’s beach restaurant with a few Cannes friends.
And instead of heading to Massive Music, we had a fantastic dinner with STW Group at Baoli restaurant. I thought we had gatecrashed a supermodel convention. Great start to the night. I then caught up with some old friends and took in some Bollywood at the Times of India party.
Seminar highlight for me on Wednesday was hearing from Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network, West Wing etc) and David Simon (The Wire and more), masterfully chaired by Piers Morgan. They were talking about how we are now in the second great Golden Age of television (yes folks, it’s still alive and kicking.) Because people can follow their favourite shows on multiple screens, they are far more engaged with them.
Some quotes:
Sorkin – “The best theatre in America right now is on TV”
Sorkin – “You can’t go make a cup of tea when you’re watching The Wire”
Simon – “You must entertain, but I’m not in it to entertain. I want to start an argument”
Sorkin – “I’m an entertainer”
Sorkin – “The West Wing is a workplace drama”
Morgan – “Twitter has become my major breaking news source”
I should also mention we saw some amazing ne X Box technology, but read Paul Coghlan’s post for a good description.
Thursday sees Sir Ken Robinson on stage, as well as the whole senior team from Crispin Porter. Can’t wait.
DAY 5. After two hours of Bollywood dancing with Kim and Paige at the Times of India party I wasn’t sure how I’d front up today, but like a trooper I was down at the Palais early doors for some really interesting sessions.
Will.i.am and Tod Machover (inventor of guitar hero) were pretty cool. In fact Will was perhaps a little too cool but he did give us his new word – Communiting, or marketing within communities. Tod Machover told us how work with the great cellist Yo Yo Ma inspired the creation of Guitar Hero.
Machover also had a good insight on the theme of having ideas when not at your desk: “If you have an idea while you’re at your computer, the idea will be limited by what the computer tools allow you to do.”
But the highlight today, which is exactly 100 years since David Ogilvy was born, was Ogilvy’s session with Sir Ken Robinson to launch the Ogilvy & Inspire series. He’s a brilliant speaker who has a great ability to make people rethink their views about important topics, like creativity.
He called for bosses to live Ogilvy’s legacy by creating an atmosphere in which creativity can thrive. His definition of creativity is “the process of having original ideas that have value.” And innovation, he says is putting good ideas into action, or in other words, applied creativity.
It was fitting that David’s wife Herta was there to witness one of the true highlights of the week. The talk, not my Bollywood moves.